Much attention has recently been focused on the poverty-stricken country of Yemen.
60 Second Expert: The U.S. in Yemen
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Chile Turns Right?
The Chilean right-wing is salivating.
Buoyed by a better-than-expected showing in mid-December’s first-round presidential voting, conservative candidate and billionaire business magnate Sebastián Piñera is the frontrunner to triumph when Chileans return to the polls on January 17.
Release: At One Year, Obama Administration Falls Short
Washington, D.C. — One year after President Obama took office on a crest of hope from progressive Americans, he has emerged as the “Have it Both Ways” President: hawk and dove, populist and pragmatist, principled and political. A report — Barely Making the Grade: Obama’s First Year — released on January 14 by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) assesses the Obama administration’s ability to deliver promised change in the past year. It examines both foreign and domestic policies instituted by the administration on such issues as the Guantánamo Bay prison, the global economy, climate change, domestic health care, the war in Afghanistan, and the financial transactions tax. This report follows up on “Thirsting for Change,” a similar assessment written by the Institute three months after Obama took office.
Foreign Policy: C-
In his first year in office, Barack Obama gave several exceptional speeches on foreign policy. In Prague, he endorsed nuclear disarmament. In Cairo, he called for a new engagement with the Islamic world. In Oslo, he repudiated torture. At these moments, the new president firmly broke with the policies of his predecessor and provided a glimpse of what a new, cooperative, just U.S. foreign policy could be.
Barely Making the Grade: Obama’s First Year
After the first 100 days of the Obama administration, the Institute for Policy Studies introduced our Change Index to evaluate the policies and performance of the new president. Did the candidate who promised change deliver on his promises?
Regime Change in Tehran? Don’t Bet on It Yet
With a proud recorded history stretching back six millennia, Iranians have evolved into staunch nationalists in modern times.
Street Heat and Foreign Policy
Without sufficient street-heat, according to the new conventional wisdom, President Obama is not going to implement progressive policies. His health care package reeks of insurance company influence. His bailouts favor Wall Street. Climate-change legislation rewards polluters through the shell game of “cap-and-trade.” Without strong social movements pulling Obama to the left, the new administration’s reforms resemble the pale liberalism of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, rather than the robust and transformative domestic change promoted by Lyndon Johnson and FDR.
A Path for Peace in South Asia
It has been a grim start to the New Year and the new decade in South Asia. Vested interests, hardened obsessions, and old habits continue to push India and Pakistan in the direction of ruinous conflict. While military planners in both countries plan and prepare for the next war, politicians and diplomats remain determined not to talk except on their own terms.
The New New Anti-Communism
Hillary Clinton is a commie symp.
That’s a familiar line from the rabid right, which hasn’t yet gotten the news that the Cold War is over. Google the secretary of state’s name and “communist,” and you’ll get over a million links, some of them to neo-Nazi websites. Folks say the craziest things on the Internet. I just didn’t expect The Washington Post to make the same argument.
The Battle of Okinawa 2009: Obama vs Hatoyama
The making of an unequal, unconstitutional, illegal, colonial and deceitful U.S.-Japan agreement.